Pizza Box Museum: Domino's, December 12, 2008

Did no one notice Adam's comment about having funny messages printed on the bottom of the boxes? Somewhere, some poor sap is excitedly clutching his computer-ordered pizza box, flipping it upside down to read this message, and shrieking in idiotic horror as the pizza flies out and lands on the floor, cheese-side down.

@feisty - I noticed, and I couldn't believe Adam didn't say what it was!! It's a trick...now we all have to order. =)

No one has to order, because I did it for you. Look no further than above. I was originally going to link to a photo of the bottom of a Domino's box but couldn't find any on the web. So I broke down and ordered a pizza on Friday to document it. More photos, after the jump.

This also gave me an excuse to do the first of what I hope will be an ongoing series of "Pizza Box Museum" posts on Slice. There's quite a range of pizza boxes out there, and, one night while staring at a rather interesting box, it hit me that I've never really documented the packaging end of the pizza scene--at least not with the obsessiveness I've devoted to slice shots and "pizza upskirt" shots.

I fully understand that this will be of interest to not many of you. If not, feel free to click on outta here. But for the rest of you, here are shots of the other "wacky" snippets of box copy on the current crop of Domino's boxes.

I first mentioned on Thursday that Domino's seemed to be trying to use humor as part of its brand identity and that this strategy even carried over to its pizza boxes.

Corru-Skeletal Technology: This box has been engineered to protect the pizza inside against crushing forces.

Since 1995, Domino's uses what John Correll of Correll Concepts calls a D-style hexagon box. It's an offshoot of the octagonal "Octabox" design that Domino's first adopted in 1988. The cut corners do a couple things--they keep the pizza from sliding around in the package, thus reducing slice separation, and minimize trapped dead-air space, which can lead to faster cool-down.

Delivery Vehicle Fuel Source: Gas, Nitrous, Electric, Pedal Power.

I have no idea how my delieveryman got the pizza to me, since Domino's neglected to mark off this part of the box.

Fill Factor: The pizza within this box has been designed for optimal stomach-fillng gratification.

By this point, the humorous little bits on the box began to go from funny and well-meaning to "enough is enough, already."

Anti-Theft Technology: Box surface has been fortified to increase grippage in the event of an attemped pizza pilfer.

Isn't that what Luke fired his proton torpedos down to destroy the first Death Star?

While I wanted to document this box, I didn't want this mini project to cost a fortune, so I checked out the "online coupons" section of the Domino's site and found a coupon good for any of the new Oven Baked Sandwich line and a 10-inch one-topping pie.

For some reason, I thought banana peppers (aka pepperoncini) would be good for my one topping. They weren't. This was the worst pizza topping I've had in a while. The peppers weren't spicy, as I expected they would be, and instead tasted pickley and sour. I could only get through one piece before trying to foist the rest of this stuff on coworkers (who, wisely, were having none of it).

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About the Author

Adam Kuban is the proprietor of the pop-up Margot's Pizza, which serves bar-style pizza. But you may also know him as the founder of Slice (RIP, 2003–2014) where he has written thousands of blog posts about pizza. He also created A Hamburger Today and served as Serious Eats's founding editor (2006–2010) after having sold those sites to SE.

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